Throughout the National Hockey League’s 2018 postseason, the league’s marketers have teamed up with super fan Snoop Dogg for a digital/social campaign based around the musician’s unique perspective on his favourite sport.
As a famous fan of the game, Snoop fronts an online video series that brings both his own perspective, personality and his audience to the game.
The online video series sees Snoop work with the league to create unique content around different hockey rules.
Initially based on rules and terms, the spots also explore slang, tradition and history.
This evolving video series isn’t the first time Snoop Dogg has been a part of a major NHL marketing initiative or promotional event.
The league invited him to perform at its All-Star Game in Los Angeles a couple years ago.
“We brought him around before rehearsal and the memory for me was his interest in being there and going to the locker room to meet the All-Stars. I watched as he walked into the Eastern Conference locker room and the first person he saw was Sidney Crosby. When he saw him, he screamed, ‘Sid the Kid!’ Right off the bat you could tell that not only was he a genuine guy, but he was genuinely interested in the game and the players. He was totally into it,” recalls NHL Chief Content Officer and EVP Steve Mayer.
It was then that Mayer saw a relationship with Snoop Dogg could go deeper and it had the potential to offer the NHL with a fresh gateway to a different, untapped audience.
“We started the conversation about what else we could do together because he was really into it,” said Mayer. “He talked with us about the fact that he felt there was a whole other world out there that would love hockey if they just got to watch it.”
Thus this educational content series was developed to attract and engage avid, casual and non fans off hockey.
“We are really happy with how successful they have been. There is plenty of chatter socially,” says Mayer.
By using an influencer approach that focuses on more personality and celebrity-driven content, the NHL aims to cut through the sports activation noise and the clutter of sports commercial content in a way that is fun, fresh, playful and entertaining.
“We are not taking ourselves that seriously. We want to have fun, we want to make people laugh, we want to entertain ultimately. All of this is part of an overall strategy that we have where we can have fun, but also not hurt anybody,” adds Mayer
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Snoop’s NHL campaign has generated more than 27 million interactions across social through the first four episodes of the series.
Thus demonstrating his engagement prowess well before the close of the campaign.
It’s the unlikely partnership that cuts through, but the fact that Snoop is an authentic, full-on fan that makes it a success.
Snoop Dogg teaches hockey might not be the first that that springs to mind when a sport fan scrolls through his or her social feeds, but he is, in fact, both educational and entertaining on the subject of hockey.
A core strand in the league’s own marketing around the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the NHL understands that sport is no longer in its own separate silo and is part of the entertainment landscape – and it needs to be marketed as such.
Most of the major US sports leagues have come to a similar conclusion through 2017/18.
Consider, for example, the NFL’s positioning of its league as a blockbuster TV property for its through-the-season campaign.
and its mimicking of hit 80s soap opera Dallas for its recent Draft marketing campaign.
While the MLB promoted the start of the new baseball season with a Game Of Thrones partnership piece.
This Snoop series is just part of the NHL’s postseason activation programme: one which also spans a ‘Names On The Cup’ documentary’,
and ever more spectacular game-opening ceremonies.
Links:
NHL
https://www.youtube.com/user/NHLVideo
